Those riveting personalities each one completed excellence, yet even more than their person accomplishments is the optimistic Hispanic photo they jointly characterize to the realm. images, illustrations, and energetic textual content inform the tales ot those interesting old figures. along with his designated mix of blues, rock, and Afro-Cuban rhythms, Santana has stored himsslf seen at the renowned song scene for greater than 30 years.

30 Finally, after three months of nonstop complaining from Carlos, Josefina had had enough. She handed Carlos a $20 bill and told him he could go back to Tijuana. 33 34 CARLOS SANTANA THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE After spending most of the day on the road, Carlos arrived in downtown Tijuana shortly after sundown on October 31, 1962. As he stepped off the bus, an eerie scene confronted him. The dark streets of the city teemed with ghosts, skeletons, and werewolves: revelers off to celebrate the first night of Mexico’s threeday-long festival, Los Dias de los Muertos (The Days of the Dead), in the seedy bars and nightclubs of Avenida Revolución.

43 44 CARLOS SANTANA Bill Graham, pictured here with Carlos Santana in 1981, managed the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco during the 1960s. Graham brought a variety of musicians to the old concert hall, but was most noted for providing a venue for acid-rock groups such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Russian Jewish parents just two years before Adolph Hitler came to power, Graham’s original name was Wolodia Granjonca. Graham’s father died as the result of an accident when Bill was just a few days old and his mother perished in a Nazi concentration camp a decade later.

They dubbed themselves the Santana Blues Band, not because they considered Carlos their leader, but because everyone agreed that his last name sounded the best. Soon the group had acquired a sixth member, a Puerto Rican-American street musician and conga player named Michael Carabello. An integral part of Latin percussion, the conga is a barrelshaped Cuban drum that is played with the bare hand. The conga’s name derives from its African roots: slaves from what is today known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo first brought the drum to the New World four centuries ago.